


The Last Week

by hannah_baker



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Actors AU, Cuddling & Snuggling, Falling In Love, Film AU, Fluff, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-03 08:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17280824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannah_baker/pseuds/hannah_baker
Summary: Nate hadn’t seen his co-star Mikey McLeod since auditions when they could both feel their spark of chemistry they had between them just as well as everyone else in the room could. He had never hit it off with another person better than with Mikey McLeod and his fluffy hair.AU where Nate and Mikey are actors playing two men falling in love. It's not ridiculous to think they would fall in love with each other, is it?





	The Last Week

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this gif from a Norwegian TV show called Skam where [the two leads were kissing even though one of them thought they weren't filming](http://ronanlysnch.tumblr.com/post/181178768675) (this isn't my tumblr), and this sparked into my head. They apparently were cast based on their chemistry and literally who has more chemistry than the superbuddies I mean c'mon. 
> 
> This is just a story about kissing and I'm not sorry about it at all.

Nate was trying to pretend he wasn’t completely green when he stepped onto his first feature film set. He’d acted plenty and he’d been in front of the camera before. But booking a main character in a movie like this was a dream and a first for him.

 

Nate hadn’t seen his co-star Mikey McLeod since auditions when they could both feel their spark of chemistry they had between them just as well as everyone else in the room could. He had never hit it off with another person better than with Mikey McLeod and his fluffy hair.

 

Nate liked Mikey immediately, bonding while they were waiting to be called into the room together and with other people, as the casting directors were trying to find the perfect mix for their indie flick. Nate knew he never would have gotten the role if he didn’t click with Mikey, who was loudly the frontrunner for Danny, the main character. Who would get Trevor’s role depended on who clicked with Mikey.

 

Mikey had been in stuff before. He wasn’t super famous, but he had a pretty dedicated following on Twitter, and like, things on his resume. Nate did a bunch of community theater, did some commercials here and there, but largely just hadn’t broken out in any discernible way.

 

When Nate showed up on set for the first shot of the whole movie, Mikey tackled him in a hug, a big hooded sweatshirt hanging off of him, looking a little messy and bedraggled. They caught up in the makeup trailer, getting their faces and hair done. It had been a couple months since they’d gotten the call that they’d gotten the parts, and he and Mikey had texted a bit. But nothing compared to being directly in Mikey’s presence.

 

They were shooting a coming of age love story called The Last Week, about two boys who fell in love in the week before they went off to separate colleges. Though the narrative was told over the course of a week, they would have three months of filming. The first week of filming was the big party scene, the penultimate scene in the movie where so much happened. By this time in the movie, Danny and Trevor were inseparable, ready to quit college before they’d even tried it in order to stay together. And they were filming a lot of it on the first day.

 

Nate was nervous.

 

They got on set and the extras filed in, many other teen-looking twenty-somethings, who would be background, silently partying while the cameras were focused on Mikey and Nate. Their first shot was getting drinks out of the kitchen, which was simple enough. Mikey stood in front of Nate, tucked against him, Nate’s arms wrapped around his middle, sort of nuzzling his neck while the girl who was “tending bar” doled out what Mikey ordered for them.

 

Of course, the party was where everything came crashing down for Trevor and Danny, but the first few scenes were soft. Once they yelled cut for the drinks scene, they did a little montage work, of Trevor and Danny threading through the crowd that they’d cut into different parts of the scene. That also went fine. Nate followed Mikey around, and Mikey never dropped his hand.

 

Toward the end of the night, they had their big first kissing scene. Nate and Mikey had kissed before, in the casting office when one of the casting directors literally wolf-whistled them, and Mikey got his hands up Nate’s shirt. It was kissing with an audience. It was acting. But here and now, with a camera pointed at them, Nate was getting a little shaky.

 

The director outlined what she expected of them. Nate would step close to kiss Mikey. Then he’d pull away, and sit down on the couch behind him, pulling Mikey onto his lap. They would kiss some more. It sounded simple enough.

 

But when they went to actually perform, Nate couldn’t stop shaking. They took a few takes where Nate’s hands were visibly shaking on Mikey’s face, tried another one where he put his hands on Mikey’s waist instead, but it was still no good.

 

“This is—” Mikey started, looking at the director. “It’s a lot fast. Can we like, take ten?”

 

The director called ten and Mikey dragged Nate out of the center of the set, back into a tangle of set walls and corners, somewhat private.

 

“You okay?” Mikey asked, pulling Nate close to him.

 

“Yeah, I’m just…”

 

“Nervous?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“What if we just got a little more familiar with each other?” Mikey suggested, and yeah—that sounded like a good plan.

 

“Sure,” Nate said, and before he could think about what ‘get more familiar with each other’ meant, Mikey slid his arms up around the back of Nate’s neck and kissed him, slow and deep. It was a good kiss. Mikey’s lips were soft and a little sweet, and Nate’s hands found Mikey’s hips easily, held them close together.

 

Mikey just kept kissing him and Nate got lost in it, until he had Mikey wrapped up in his arms, pressed flush against him, the way he’d kiss someone he was really into. When Mikey pulled away, they were both breathing hard.

 

“That help?” Mikey asked, his lips looking pink and kissed and amazing.

 

Nate nodded, slow and dumb.

 

“We should get back to set, okay?” Mikey said, still so close to Nate.

 

“Oh, yeah,” Nate said, so focused on what it felt like to kiss Mikey that he barely remembered they were making a movie.

 

“So when we’re back out there, just remember that it’s just the two of us okay? Like, sure, they’re making a movie. But it’s still just the two of us.”

 

Nate nodded and Mikey smiled at him, leaned back in for another kiss. “They can’t tell us we’re bad at that, huh?” Mikey asked with a little smirk on his face, before turning to head back to set.

 

They got reset, and before they started back up, Mikey looked at him. “You and me,” he said, and Nate nodded.

 

When they called action, Nate stepped forward and pulled Mikey to him with confident hands and planted one on him, just the way Mikey had done in the minutes they’d spent alone. Mikey pressed close to him and he pulled them back toward the couch, tumbling a bit as they both got situated, a little genuine laughter that would make the final cut of the movie, before Mikey ducked his head down to lick into Nate’s mouth again.

 

They wrapped shooting for the night at the end of that scene, and Nate felt a million times better. More confident and surer of himself, ready for the rest of shooting. He and Mikey headed back to the apartment the movie had rented for them to share during filming.

 

“I’m glad it was you, man,” he said, smiling. “I’m glad they chose you. I can’t imagine doing this with anyone but you.”

 

“Me too,” Nate said, glad to have Mikey by his side.

 

\---

 

Mikey’s trailer was the hangout trailer. Nate got his own trailer too, but he stopped using it after the first week because well, Mikey wasn’t in it. Nate wasn’t sure what magic casting directors had, but they were looking to cast for two kids who would fall deeply in love quickly, and they found two real people who became best friends really quickly.

 

When they weren’t on set, Mikey and Nate lived in an apartment together, and when they were on set, they were addicted to each other. Mikey had more scenes than Nate did because he was the main focus of the story. He had family members and an ex-boyfriend, and while Nate also had little sisters, he didn’t have as much fuss.

 

This meant that Nate had more downtime. And even on scenes that Nate wasn’t in, he was on set, watching Mikey work.

 

Mikey was incredible. Nate wasn’t sure if it was because he’d lost all sense of objectivity when it came to Mikey McLeod, or if he was really just magic—just a true and pure acting talent.

 

They were in the trailer, looking over the pages for the next scene, running lines. It was going to be their first kiss, just hours after they met when their chemistry was so out of this world that neither of them could deny the fact that they had to press their lips together.

 

“Do you get the blocking for this?” Mikey asked, pointing to the description of what Nate and Mikey were supposed to be doing with their bodies in that scene.

 

“Yeah, I think it’s supposed to be like—” and Nate stood up from Mikey’s trailer couch were they were both sprawled out and pulled Mikey up with him. He referenced the paper in his hands, then shoved Mikey up against the wall, hands on his hips. He stared into Mikey’s eyes, leaving the long, dramatic pause that the script dictated.

 

At that point it would probably have been completely acceptable to say something like, “and then we kiss here,” and leave it at that. But Nate didn’t do that. Instead, when the pause felt long enough and heady enough, he pressed a soft, soft kiss to Mikey’s lips.

 

Mikey squeaked, and it sent a shiver down Nate’s spine as Mikey threaded his fingers through Nate’s hair. When Nate pulled back, he saw Mikey’s huge smile. God, Mikey was a good actor. Nate was constantly in awe of him.

 

“Yeah, I think it’s totally like that. I think you’re right.”

 

And Nate hovered close to him like that for longer than was really necessary before they were abruptly called to set.

 

\---

 

After a month down, they were beginning to get into a rhythm. They were basically just shooting all day, every day. Little pieces of the puzzle coming together day by day. Nate was abundantly aware of the fact that they were already a third of the way through the shoot, and he couldn’t imagine ever having a day where he didn’t wake up and go to bed in the same apartment as Mikey.

 

That day was a shoot between Mikey and the guy who was playing his ex-boyfriend, who was still in love with hiw character Danny. Nate was on set because Nate couldn’t help it. What else was there to do?

 

But that day was different, long and awkward because the guy they had playing Mikey’s ex-boyfriend was Dylan Strome, Mikey’s best friend from childhood. Nate had spent the week hearing about Dylan already. How they grew up doing community theater together. How their first gig was a toy commercial for a local department store when they were really young. How Dylan was—and don’t tell anyone—Mikey’s first kiss.

 

By the time Dylan showed up, Nate wanted to murder him.

 

Nate and Mikey had driven together even though Nate didn’t need to be there until after lunch which meant it was five in the morning and Nate was grumpy and crashing the party in the makeup trailer. Dylan and Mikey were sitting next to each other, laughing constantly about inside jokes that Nate wasn’t in on. Dylan kept saying things, like “Mike, tell Nate about the time when you broke my arm. Clouder—Clouder—remember that time when we corralled the whole neighborhood to play street hockey and got into the local paper? Remember the time, Michael, when we found our little brothers kissing each other, Mikey, remember?”

 

Nate only felt the storm cloud over his head growing.

 

“Isn’t Dylan great,” Mikey said on their way to set, and Nate grunted, crabby and not at all in agreement. Mikey didn’t pick up on it.

 

The scene they were shooting was one in Danny’s house where Nate’s character Trevor was technically asleep upstairs in Danny’s bed, but you didn’t see him. Danny’s ex-boyfriend Shawn shows up and they have this weird heart-to-heart. Shawn is going to the same college as Danny and appeals to how easy it will be to be together. Easier than being with Trevor, which like, who was he again?

 

The scene is so awkward for Nate to watch, and when Shawn leans in to try to kiss Danny, Nate almost screams. Instead, he excuses himself from set as quietly as he can between takes and goes back to his own trailer, which he had to legitimately look for since it had been so long since he used it.

 

An hour later, there was a knock on the door, and Mikey poked his head in.

 

“Nater, you disappeared,” he said, slipping in and shutting the door behind him, alone.

 

“No Strome?” Nate asked, sour-faced and a little hopeful, as no one followed Mikey in. Nate was pouting, sprawled out on his couch, clutching a pillow to his chest. Nate’s trailer was exactly the same as Mikey’s, but it was just dead inside. There was no personality. No polaroid photos of them taped up, no pile of Mikey’s things on the counter by the sink. Just. Empty.

 

“Dyl is done for the day. He went back to his hotel.” The scenes with the ex-boyfriend would be shot over the course of three days, so Dylan didn’t get an apartment like Nate and Mikey did.

 

“Oh,” Nate said. He could feel his shoulders relax a little.

 

Mikey laughed at him. “Wow, you hate him.”

 

“I don’t hate him.”

 

“You hate him,” Mikey shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. Mikey was easy-going about literally everything, Nate couldn’t even believe it.

 

“I hate him,” Nate admitted.

 

“Whatever. We have two hours before we’re due back on set for our scenes. Can we nap? I’m so fucking tired.”

 

“Nap sounds good,” Nate said, but he wasn’t quite expecting Mikey to walk over to his couch and insinuate himself into the situation, tossing Nate’s pillow away and putting a knee between Nate’s legs as he stretched out directly on top of Nate, snuggled on his chest. Nate’s hands automatically came up to hold Mikey in place, play with his hair.

 

“Shit, this is nice,” Mikey said, and Nate hummed an agreement. “I missed you all day, you know that? Like, I’m really glad you were there in the morning in the makeup trailer because I think I would have gone crazy without you. Without just knowing you were there. It was weird to spend so much time on set with someone who isn’t you. I just. I just want all of our scenes to be together.”

 

“Me too,” Nate said.

 

He and Mikey were always pretty tactile. And arm around shoulders or someone’s back. Holding hands on set to keep them close together. Sitting closer than really necessary when they hung out in Mikey’s trailer, or somewhere else. This was a natural extension of that, having Mikey cuddled on top of him, and Nate, well.

 

Nate didn’t want to admit the feelings he had for Mikey. Feelings that were getting harder and harder to ignore. 

 

Maybe it was the fact that they were making a movie about how they were desperately in love with each other. Maybe it was the fact that they had been specifically selected to spend this much time together by people who thought that they had incredible chemistry. Maybe it was fate. That Nate and Mikey were always supposed to be together.

 

It felt like someone had constructed a perfect structure of the dryest kindling and then held a match under it, daring it to not go up in flames. Nate only had about one thought a day that didn’t have to do with Mikey, he estimated, and he couldn’t even come up with an example of what that thought might be.

 

He felt Mikey’s breathing even out as he fell asleep, and Nate just wanted this. Wanted quiet couch naps. Wanted to be there when Mikey woke up, wanted to be the person Mikey chose to spend all his time with. But forever, instead of just for three months.

 

Mikey was such a good actor. Nate could watch him really turn it on for the camera. Sometimes, when they were doing scenes together, he got caught up with how Mikey looked at him, like he was every precious thing in the world. Sometimes it made his breath catch even though he knew it was just Mikey's character looking at Nate's character. Because that was exactly how he felt about Mikey.

 

He was on a one-way-path to heartbreak. Nate knew this already.

 

Still, he hugged Mikey tight to him while he could.

 

\---

 

There was a lot of dead time on a movie set. Late one afternoon Nate found himself at a table by craft services with an assortment of folks. The girls who played his little twin sisters, his favorite PA, Katie, a couple camera operators. The whole cast and crew had become pretty close, and everyone was talking about what they were going to do with their day off the next day when Mikey caught his eye from across the room.

 

Mikey was going through the craft services line with a plate, looking like a hungry little gremlin. They’d had a long day together so far, and Nate felt how Mikey looked. He waved Mikey down to come sit by them, and Mikey just plopped into Nate’s lap like it was the most normal thing in the world to do.

 

Nate wrapped his around Mikey’s waist to keep him still and Mikey hopped into the conversation, talking about how the two of them were going to go to an arcade that Nate had found online. Nate was kind of tuning out the conversation.

 

He had the weight of Mikey on his lap, warm and heavy. Mikey had a bunch of food on his plate to eat, but of course he started with a chocolate-frosted donut that Nate was very, very jealous of. It was all very distracting, okay?

 

“Where’d you get the donut?” he asked, voice quiet enough to just be addressing Mikey.

 

“At the way end, past the fruit and stuff,” Mikey said, pointing, mouth full of donut already. “You want a bite?”

 

And yes, Nate emphatically did want a bite. He needed some sugar to fuel the final scene they had to film that night. However, he wasn’t quite expecting Mikey to bring the donut over to his mouth so he could feed Nate a bite. Still, he wasn’t complaining. It was a good bite, and Nate chewed while Mikey talked to everyone at the table.

 

He was laughing, gesturing with the donut in his hand, and like, if you aren’t going to eat the donut, you might as well let someone else do it. He nudged Mikey’s shoulder with his nose, silently getting his attention. Then he raised his eyebrows and looked at the donut again. Mikey fed him another bite.

 

One of the camera operators talked about getting to see his kid, and Mikey turned his focus back to eating, but traded donut bites with Nate until he got to the end.

 

“Last bite?” Mikey asked him, offering it to him. And that was love. Nate didn’t have any doubts that Mikey liked him. Enjoyed his presence and appreciated his company and all that. But the last donut bite? That was a statement.

 

He took it gently out from between Mikey’s fingers with his teeth, and Mikey licked the icing off his fingers, then grabbed a napkin to wipe some chocolate off the corner of Nate’s mouth with a bit of an eyebrow that said _you’re a complete mess, Nater, jeez._ Nate just gave him another squeeze around his waist in appreciation. And agreement, honestly.

 

“So how long have you two been together?” the other camera operator asked. Kristine was mid-thirties, and Nate knew she was gay so she was automatically his favorite. He didn’t make the rules. That’s just how it was. However, this question caught them both completely off-guard.

 

“Um, we’re not-” Nate started, while Mikey just laughed.

 

“We’ve been best friends since August fourth,” Mikey said, the start date for shooting the movie. Nate shot Kristine a panicked look that he thought probably said something like _I’m in love with him and he has no idea, clearly,_ and she mouthed a _sorry_ across the table and hustled the conversation in a different direction.

 

\---

 

They were on location. It was a casual day, shooting a date down by the beach. It was a little too cold to be shooting outside in bathing suits, but that’s what Nate was getting paid the medium bucks for, so he sucked it up. Besides, between takes they put robes on to warm up a bit.

 

Nate was thinking he’d never feel his feet again (why was cold sand so cold) when they moved to film a little kiss scene. It was in the back of Trevor’s car, the hatchback open to where they were packing up their beach stuff. Nate was seated on the back of the hatch, and Mikey was supposed to be standing between his legs. Nate thought that the crew was trying to get a few final things settled before shooting.

 

“C’mere,” he said, pulling Mikey closer to him. It was cold, and it was nice to have Mikey close, okay? Mikey just smiled, and leaned in to kiss him, long and slow, as Nate pulled him even closer by his hips, matched the intensity of Mikey's kiss.

 

When Mikey broke away from him, Nate was a little confused, but certainly not mad about it.

 

“That was nice but we’re not rolling,” he said, and Mikey whipped around to face the director.

 

“We’re rolling right?” Mikey asked, and everyone agreed. Yeah, Nate had just missed the call that they were shooting. Mikey turned back to him, big smile on his face.

 

“You thought we weren’t rolling and you kissed me like that anyway?” he asked, teasing smile on his face.

 

“Oh, what was I supposed to do, push you away and wipe the cooties off my mouth?”

 

“Maybe something like that,” Mikey said, looking at Nate with a little smile on his face that Nate couldn’t quite place.

 

They reset for the shot, and this time, Nate knew they were shooting. Somehow, the kiss this time just wasn’t as sweet.

 

\---

 

They made it two months into shooting before they had to shoot their big sex scene. It was going to be an emotional scene, the night before they leave for school, their love ripped apart. They’d known this one was coming up for weeks.

 

By that point, they had done plenty of kissing scenes. Danny and Trevor were kind of always kissing in the way that teenagers are with their first loves. The movie itself is so quiet and slow that it just asks for moments like that, pauses to reorient. Center themselves. She always referred to their kissing scenes as ‘centering scenes, where Danny and Trevor come back to each other,’ even if they were standing next to each other holding hands the whole time.

 

Nate was nervous. Mikey had been energetic and bouncy all day like he normally was. Mikey was so even-keel sometimes that Nate wondered if he was a real person. It always just made Nate feel more neurotic. 

 

The set for their sex scene was a closed set, meaning that only essential personnel were allowed to be there. Still, it felt like a lot of people about to see him mostly naked. They were filming in the “Trevor’s Bedroom” set, which Nate tried to find comfort in. It was just like being in his own bedroom, except it only had three walls, and it was a highly stylized version of a teen bedroom. His own real bedroom was a disaster zone of dirty clothes and hockey posters, instead of looking like a Pottery Barn Teen.

 

He stood next to Mikey in their robes by the bed while everything technical got settled. The director had tips for them, what she wanted to see, which was just tenderness and intimacy and emotion. Mikey just kept smiling bigger as she said each daunting word, while Nate had to remind himself to breathe.

 

“You cool, Nater?” Mikey asked before they took their robes off and got settled on the bed. The camera felt very close to where they were going to be. The first shots would be snug on them, as they kissed and looked at each other.

 

“Um,” Nate said, looking down at the camera. He wasn’t so sure.

 

“Hey, I got you,” he said, his hand reaching out to grab Nate’s arm. Mikey’s touch was centering. And while more than half of the reason he was nervous was because he was doing this with Mikey, more than half the reason he knew he could do this was because it was with Mikey. Mikey made him nervous, but he gave Nate strength too.

 

“Yeah,” Nate said, slipping his arm out of Mikey’s grip just enough to hold his hand, give it a squeeze.

 

Then, they took their robes off and were meticulously directed to lay down in a specific way, in a specific place. Nate on his back, Mikey curled over him, bare ass on display. For whatever reason, Nate had a no-nudity clause in his contract, but Mikey was just fine being naked wherever.

 

Mikey McLeod was naked and on top of him and he couldn’t even enjoy it because he had a room full of people watching him and a camera pointed at them. It was not at all a sexy turn of events.

 

Nate was breathing hard, his hands on Mikey’s hips, when the director called action. Mikey leaned in and brushed Nate’s nose. That was their thing, as characters. This gentle, tender nose brush that felt intimate, was an easy way for a camera to read intimacy. He tipped his head down to touch foreheads together before he said his line.

 

“You sure you want to do this?”

 

And even if Nate hadn’t memorized the script, hadn’t had his lines for this scene memorized for weeks in advance, it wouldn’t have mattered, because the words he wanted to say and the words he was supposed to say were the same.

 

“Yeah. I want this.”

 

And then Mikey was kissing him. Not to brag or anything, but Nate had kissed a selection of boys in his day. He thought he was pretty experienced, at least when kissing came into play. But no one he’d ever kissed before could compare to Mikey. The combination of his soft lips and the way he used his tongue—sparingly but skillfully—wasn’t something Nate even knew what to do with. He just tried to kiss him back the best he could.

 

Mikey’s lips moved to his neck, and Nate's brain shorted out.

 

“Cut,” the director yelled. Nate snapped out of it.

 

“Nate, when Mikey moves to your neck, you’re supposed to pull him close to you by his ass,” she explained, and okay, now he remembered that that was the plan.

 

He remembered but he very deeply couldn't make his brain properly process grabbing Mikey’s bare ass.

 

The camera rolled again. Mikey leaned in. Nose. Forehead. Kisses. Neck. Nate’s hands slid down Mikey’s back to his ass, the bare skin so fucking smooth and incredible Nate could barely handle it. Mikey wasn’t fully naked. He was wearing a weird little garment that allowed his junk to be protected, but try to tell Nate’s brain that now.

 

All he could do was thank the gods above for making this so ridiculously uncomfortable to experience. He had the boy he’s in love with on top of him, naked, but it didn’t even matter because he could feel how hot the lights were above him. He could practically hear the director’s breathing. They were all so close. It was the least romantic experience he’d ever had in his life, and he was very very grateful he didn’t at all feel like he was about to pop a boner.

 

Mikey groaned as Nate pulled him close. That bit was scripted, but only the rational part of Nate’s brain knew that, and the rational part of Nate’s brain was a distinct minority.

 

Mikey was moving on him, shifting his hips, sucking a kiss on his neck, the heavy weight of him familiar from their habit of not having any fucking personal space ever. Mikey moved his kisses back to Nate’s lips, and when he bit down on Nate’s bottom lip, Nate couldn’t help it. “Mikey,” he breathed.

 

It was the smallest fraction of a second after Mikey’s name came out of his mouth before the heat of embarrassment flooded over him.

 

“Cut,” the director said. Mikey looked down at him, and Nate could barely meet his eyes.

 

“Sorry,” he said, wanting to go die in a hole. If he wasn’t like, contractually obligated to not run away and die in a hole, he would have been out of there immediately.

 

“Just you and me,” Mikey repeated, smiling a sweet, kind Mikey smile. His hand came up to caress Nate’s cheek, his thumb sliding over the apple of it.

 

“Sorry,” Nate said again. He wasn’t sure if Mikey’s kindness was making it better or worse.

 

“Alright, I do like the name moan there,” the director said, watching the tape back. “So we can keep that. However, let’s get the name right this time, kiddo. Reset so we can roll tape.”

 

Needless to say, it was a long day.

 

\---

 

The sex scene took a full ten hours to film, since it was so delicate and the director wanted it to be just perfect. By the time they called filming for the day, Nate was exhausted.

 

“Man, I love wearing clothes,” Mikey said, curled up in the passenger seat of Nate’s car as they headed back to their apartment. He had his eyes closed, and the front of his hair was sticking out of the hood he’d pulled over it, always a life of its own.

 

Nate laughed. “I feel you.” Though at that point, he felt like he could probably go be practically naked in front of anyone. After that length of time naked, you just kind of lose your shame and stop caring.

 

Nate played the day over in his head. There was a lot of simulated _things_ that they did that day that he couldn’t stop thinking about. Mikey fake blowing him. Nate fake fucking him. Filming sex was the weirdest thing because it was nothing like performing actual acts.

 

It didn’t stop Nate from wanting that though. Wanting to know what a real blow job from Mikey would be like. What it would actually feel like to push into him. What his real orgasm face would be like.

 

The scene the filmed that day was a sad one. It was like a goodbye. And Nate would be perfectly fine to not learn what saying goodbye to Mikey would actually be like.

 

They got back home, and Mikey made a sandwich and fed half of it to Nate while they sat on the couch not watching the TV one of them had turned on. Nate’s brain was just done working for the day, and it seemed like Mikey’s was too.

 

When Nate got up to go to bed, though, Mikey followed him, stripped down to his underwear with him, slipped under the sheets with him.

 

“Hey, Mike,” Nate said, the feeling of Mikey’s skin against his suddenly feeling completely different than it had all day. The opposite of whatever they’d been doing all day.

 

“Is this okay?” Mikey asked, his voice small and quiet for maybe the first time ever.

 

“Yeah. You okay?”

 

“Just wanted. I don’t know. We spent the whole day as Danny and Trevor and I guess I kind of missed you.”

 

“I get it,” Nate said. He pulled Mikey close to him, tangling their legs together. Alone in Nate’s room, it truly was just the two of them, covered in sheets and a heavy comforter instead of being flimed, watched intently with a ton of prying eyes. “I missed you, too.”

 

Nate wasn’t exactly sure when they’d become such a unit. He’d never had a friendship as intense as Mikey’s. It felt urgent every second of every day to be with Mikey that he felt like he’d had few other thoughts in the past two months. It was probably just the life of filming. Spending every day together. On set, it was almost always the two of them. People got confused when they caught sight of just one of them without the other. Nate knew the dancers emoji was being used quite a bit to refer to the two of them.

 

He wasn’t sure what Mikey felt about him, other than that same pull to be together all the time, evidenced by a million things, not least at the fact that he was in Nate’s bed right now. But he didn’t know if they were romantic feelings. Nate was always terrible at figuring that out, feeling that out.

 

All he knew was that his biggest nightmare was confessing his love to Mikey, getting turned down (gently, he was sure. Mikey was such a nice guy) and then having to be on set for another month pretending that he wasn’t completely heartbroken because their characters still had to moon over each other.

 

Nate took a breath. He could feel the tip of Mikey’s cold nose pressing against his neck. He loved this boy. Fuck, he loved him. And he was just going to enjoy what he could get. At least for now.

 

\---

 

Nate woke up one day and realized there were only a handful of days left of shooting. Just shy of one week. For whatever reason, most of the scenes they were shooting were at the beginning of the movie, where they were meeting each other and feeling that spark of attraction that just snowballs through the whole movie. Nate knew that movies were shot out of order for logistical reasons, but as an actor, it could kind of fuck with your head a little bit.

 

He woke up again with Mikey in his bed. Mikey hadn’t spent every night in Nate’s bed, but when they had an emotional or especially exhausting day on set, it was like Mikey needed to feel more connected to Nate. Like he needed him to recharge properly. Mikey was tangled up in the top sheet, and Nate had most of the blanket, and Nate was hit with the most powerful sense of loss he’d thought he’d ever had, outside of someone dying.

 

Mikey wasn’t even gone yet. The movie hadn’t even wrapped yet. They still had time together. But Nate’s mom was already asking about when he’d be home, and what he’d like for his welcome home dinner. He knew that Mikey had called a moving company to get his own stuff from New Jersey back to Ontario. It wasn’t the end, but it was the end. And it washed over Nate like a black wave.

 

He slipped out of his bed, careful not to wake Mikey, and hopped in the shower. By the time Mikey was awake, Nate was ready to go. The drive to set and the morning makeup trailer, which were usually upbeat endeavors, were quiet. Nate just couldn’t muster anything. Any energy.

 

The director noticed it too, asked if Nate was sick. Nate shook it off and summoned everything he had in him to get through that scene, one where Danny and Trevor are at an all-night diner the night they meet, unwilling to go home because they already know they have something special.

 

The director kept saying “use the chemistry you have to ignite that spark,” and Nate kept trying and kept trying and finally he just looked into Mikey’s eyes, the love of his fucking life, and had to fight back tears. When they wrapped on that scene the director hugged him, called him an incredible talent. She had no idea Nate wasn’t acting at all.

 

There was no escape from Mikey, but Nate tried. Long ‘bathroom breaks,’ sitting on the couch across from Mikey instead of right next to him, burying himself in his phone pretending to text. He spent the day distant from Mikey, and Mikey noticed. Mikey noticed everything. By the drive home, Nate could tell that Mikey was getting to the end of his rope with Nate, and Nate couldn’t summon it in him to make nice. He was just at the end of what he had.

 

Their apartment was no reprieve. Nate tried going to his room and shutting the door, but Mikey followed him in, no personal space allowed.

 

“What’s your deal today? What’s wrong?” Mikey asked, not as delicate as he could have been about it. He’d lost his delicateness after the third or fourth time Nate had snapped at him that day.

 

“Nothing is wrong,” Nate said, pulling his shirt off to change into his pajamas. It was supposed to be a sign that the conversation was over. That it was time for Nate to go to bed, and for Mikey to leave. But of course, it did the opposite.

 

Mikey pulled his own shirt off, started changing into the pajamas that he already had in Nate’s room. Nate huffed a little.

 

“That. That means something is wrong. That’s not a normal Nater sound effect.”

 

“Can you please quit pushing?” Nate snapped at him, one leg in his pajama pants.

 

“I cannot quit pushing because you’re the most important person to me and you’re upset. Spit it out, Bastian.”

 

 _The most important person to me_. Fuck. That’s what broke Nate. He couldn’t keep it in any longer. “Ugh, that’s why, Mike. Because you obviously love me. Because I’m obviously important to you. But not the way I want to be. Not the way you’re important to me. I love you because I’m _in love_ with you, and I didn’t want to tell you because it would ruin it. Because we have five days left of falling in love on screen and how am I supposed to get through it when I have concrete proof that you don’t feel that way? I’ve only gotten this far through this stupid movie pretending that you feel the same way I do when we’re on set. And now...will you even want to be in the same room as me?”

 

Nate felt like he was on fire. Or like, he wanted to be on fire. He wanted a fire to swallow him whole, right there so he could just end it in peace.

 

Mikey stepped closer to Nate, who had been able, somehow, to struggle into his pajama pants fully during his speech.

 

“You love me,” he said, his voice quiet. Mikey was just in his underwear, and fuck, Nate hated how beautiful he thought Mikey looked. Nate hated that he’d always remember that Mikey had rejected him while he was in his underwear. Almost naked.

 

Mikey took a step forward, then another. They were close, breathing the same air the way the had been for the past three months. Then he took one more step forward and was kissing Nate, messy and inexacting, like smashing their mouths together was more important than making the kiss look good for the camera.

 

Mikey had his hands on Nate’s face, and every single kiss they’d had before had been a good kiss because it was Mikey. But this kiss—this kiss exploded between them, the fervor of what it meant making Nate feel frantic.

 

Because Nate had been expecting to be rejected. His whole body had been preparing to be rejected. His brain swirled in the cognitive dissonance of Mikey’s lips on his. His hands found Mikey’s hips and pulled him close, and Mikey finally pulled away just as their kiss was starting to find its footing.

 

“Nater,” he said, so soft, letting it just hang in the air between them. “You think I don’t fucking love you? I sleep in your fucking bed as often as I think I can get away with. How platonic do you really think that is?”  


“I thought it was just a Mikey thing,” he said. Because no, he wouldn’t consider sleeping in someone’s bed with them generally just buddies, especially when your own bed is literally across the hall.

 

“Loving Nathan Basitan  _is_ a Mikey thing, so I guess you’re right,” Mikey teased, and Nate whined, not exactly the sound he had been thinking he would make in this scenario.

 

“I’ve been torturing myself for months, McLeod, what the fuck.”

 

“I don’t think I could have been more obvious. I napped on you. On. Top. Of. You. Twice a week for how long?”

 

“I kissed you when I thought we weren’t filming.”

 

“I kissed you the first day of filming, when no cameras were pointing at us, c’mon.”

 

“You were just trying to make me feel better.”

 

“Yeah. But still.”

 

“But still.”

 

“So. Are you mad at me?”

 

“How could literally anyone be mad at Mikey McLeod. You’re literal sunshine. Are you mad at me?”

 

“I would be mad about you snapping at me if the snapping wasn’t the reason I’m about to pull your underwear off of you honestly,” Mikey said, and Nate laughed at him. What a fucking dork.

 

The good news was that the falling in love scenes they still had left to film weren’t exactly a hardship.

 

\---

 

EPILOGUE

 

“Rumor has it that you two are boyfriends in real life,” a reporter asked them, as they were doing promo before The Final Week came out. They were sitting in directors chairs next to each other, and Mikey reached out to grab Nate’s hand.

 

“Yeah, that’s true,” Mikey said. It had been almost a year since filming had wrapped, but Nate rarely spent a day without Mikey. Even when Mikey booked a new movie, Nate went with him to live in Vancouver while it shot.

 

“How did that come about? How did you meet?”

 

“We met during casting. That casting team should be matchmakers. They really emphasized wanting to make sure that the two lead characters had believable chemistry. Take sparking chemistry and add living together and spending every moment of every day together pretending to be in love with each other and kissing all the time, and that’s a pretty good recipe for actually falling in love, it turns out,” Nate said.

 

He was having a good time doing promotion, even though it was a stressful situation. He just liked being back in the headspace of being Danny and Trevor. He loved getting to focus on this project that was his and Mikey’s. He was proud of Mikey for booking a new movie on his own, but he couldn’t pretend that revisiting the reason that they found each other wasn’t fun for him.

 

“We do love hearing stories like that. How sweet. Would you two want to make another movie together?” the reporter asked. 

 

“I would love to get paid to kiss Nater again every day, are you kidding me? Easiest money I ever made,” Mikey said. What a fucking dork. Nate just fucking loved him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi you can find my fic blog on Tumblr [here](http://betsywritesfic.tumblr.com), and my personal blog (mostly hockey) [here](http://thewestishharpooners.tumblr.com) :)


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